St. Joseph the Hesychast

The man through whom the Jesus Prayer came back to Athos in the twentieth century. He lived in the caves of the Little St Anne skete in real poverty, kept the night vigil and the prayer of the heart with a strictness that alarmed people, and taught a small brotherhood by letter and by example. When he died in 1959 the Holy Mountain was emptying. His disciples and their disciples afterwards took over and refilled Philotheou, Karakallou, Xeropotamou, Konstamonitou and Vatopaidi, and founded houses in Greece, Cyprus and America, so that most of the Athonite revival traces back to that cave. Glorified by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2020. Feast: August 16.